Community Guidelines

Effective September 19, 2026

Buildsby is a place for students to show what they are working on, discover other builders, form teams, and turn skills into meaningful work. These guidelines explain the behaviour and content we allow so people can participate safely and trust what they see. They apply together with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

The short version

• Be honest about who you are, what you built, and what you contributed.
• Treat people with respect. Harassment, hate, threats, sexual misconduct, and targeted abuse are not allowed.
• Share only content, code, data, and ideas you have the right to share.
• Use Buildsby to create and learn, not to cheat, scam, spam, exploit, or cause harm.
• Report serious problems. Buildsby may remove content or restrict accounts to protect the community.

The examples below clarify the rules but do not cover every possible situation. We may act on content or conduct that creates a comparable risk even if it is not listed word for word.

1. Purpose

Buildsby exists to help students discover work, share progress, find collaborators, and build a credible record of what they have contributed. Honest mistakes, unfinished projects, experiments, and respectful disagreement are welcome. Conduct that makes people unsafe, deceives the community, or interferes with others' ability to participate is not.

2. Scope

These guidelines apply to profiles, usernames, biographies, project pages, images, videos, code samples, links, comments, messages, collaboration requests, job or opportunity posts, and any other content or activity on Buildsby. They also apply when a person uses Buildsby to arrange conduct elsewhere.

We may consider off-platform behaviour when it presents a credible risk to a Buildsby user, shows that an account is being used for abuse or fraud, or could seriously undermine trust in projects and contributions shown on Buildsby.

3. Respectful participation

Treat other people as peers. You may question an idea, criticize a product, decline a request, leave a team, or give direct feedback. Keep criticism focused on the work or behaviour and do not turn disagreement into personal abuse.

The following conduct is not allowed:

• Harassment, bullying, humiliation, intimidation, stalking, dogpiling, or repeated unwanted contact.
• Threats of violence or harm, celebration of real-world harm, or attempts to make someone fear for their safety.
• Hateful attacks, dehumanizing language, or exclusion directed at people because of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, serious medical condition, age, or another protected or vulnerable characteristic.
• Sexual harassment, unwanted sexual comments or advances, sexual coercion, or sharing intimate material without the person's clear consent.
• Publishing private or identifying information to expose, intimidate, or harm someone. This includes doxxing and threats to reveal private information.
• Retaliating against someone for declining a collaboration, leaving a team, setting a boundary, or making a good-faith report.

4. Authentic profiles and honest contributions

Buildsby profiles and project histories can influence collaboration and career opportunities. Represent yourself and your work accurately.

• Do not impersonate another person, organization, university, employer, or project.
• Do not materially misrepresent your identity, school affiliation, credentials, experience, availability, or authority to act for a team.
• Do not claim sole credit for team work or list a role, skill, result, customer, funding amount, award, or project status that is false or misleading.
• Describe your own contribution clearly when a project includes work by teammates, contractors, open-source contributors, templates, or AI tools.
• Do not create coordinated fake accounts, testimonials, endorsements, reviews, followers, applications, or engagement.
• Do not alter screenshots, metrics, demo results, or other evidence in a way that misleads viewers about what a project can do.

A project may be early, incomplete, experimental, or unsuccessful. Say so plainly. Buildsby values credible progress more than polished exaggeration.

5. Projects and collaboration

Project owners and collaborators should set clear expectations before work begins. Explain the project's purpose, current stage, requested skills, expected time commitment, decision-making process, and any compensation, expenses, equity, ownership, or confidentiality terms that may apply.

Do not use Buildsby to:

• Recruit people into a project under false pretences or conceal that the main purpose is unpaid sales, lead generation, coursework, or work for an unrelated business.
• Promise pay, equity, ownership, employment, course credit, references, prizes, or exposure that you are not authorized and reasonably able to provide.
• Charge an application, onboarding, equipment, training, or access fee for a fake or misleading opportunity.
• Pressure collaborators to surrender work, credentials, personal accounts, money, or intellectual property beyond what they knowingly agreed to provide.
• Exclude or discriminate against people in a way prohibited by law or these guidelines.
• Keep using a person's name, image, biography, or work after they have credibly disputed that use, unless you have a lawful basis to do so.

Buildsby is not a party to collaboration, employment, equity, payment, or ownership agreements between users. Put important terms in writing and obtain independent advice when the stakes are significant.

6. Intellectual property and confidential information

Post only material that you created or are authorized to use. Respect copyright, trademarks, patents, licences, trade secrets, privacy rights, publicity rights, and contractual restrictions.

• Do not copy another person's project, design, code, writing, image, video, dataset, pitch, or idea presentation and present it as your own.
• Follow open-source and Creative Commons licence terms, including attribution, notice, source-disclosure, and share-alike requirements where applicable.
• Do not upload private repositories, access keys, internal documents, customer data, research data, employer information, or team materials without authorization.
• Do not publish course slides, tests, assignments, solution sets, recordings, or instructor materials unless you have permission to share them.
• Do not remove authorship, ownership, licence, or attribution information to hide where material came from.

If team ownership is unclear, pause publication and resolve it with the people involved. Buildsby may remove or restrict disputed content while reviewing a report, but it cannot adjudicate complex ownership or contract disputes.

7. Academic integrity

Buildsby supports legitimate learning and collaboration. It must not be used to arrange, request, sell, distribute, or complete academic work in violation of a course, program, research, or institution rule.

• Do not request or provide answers for an active test, exam, quiz, or individually graded assignment.
• Do not recruit someone to complete work that will be submitted as another person's own work.
• Do not sell essays, code, lab reports, problem sets, admissions materials, or other work intended for dishonest submission.
• Do not share restricted assessment materials or help someone bypass exam, plagiarism, proctoring, or authorship controls.
• Do not fabricate research data, participant records, citations, credentials, or approval documents.

Study groups, tutoring, peer review, open-source work, and course-approved team projects are allowed when they follow the applicable rules. If you are unsure whether collaboration or AI assistance is permitted, ask the instructor or institution before using or sharing the work.

8. Privacy and personal information

Protect your own information and other people's information. Do not collect, post, sell, or use personal data beyond what the person reasonably expects and has authorized.

• Do not share home addresses, private phone numbers, government identifiers, financial details, login credentials, medical information, private messages, or precise location information without authorization.
• Do not scrape profiles, build shadow profiles, enrich user data from outside sources, or export user information for unsolicited recruiting, marketing, surveillance, or resale.
• Do not add people to mailing lists, campaigns, datasets, facial-recognition systems, or AI training datasets without a valid basis and any consent required by law.
• Do not post another person's photo, recording, or private conversation where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy unless you have permission or another lawful basis.

Before sharing sensitive project information, use appropriate access controls and a written confidentiality agreement when necessary. Never place passwords, secret keys, access tokens, or private credentials in a public project post.

9. Personal safety

Use reasonable care when moving a conversation off Buildsby, sending money, granting repository access, or meeting someone in person. Buildsby does not guarantee a user's identity, background, qualifications, intentions, or ability to perform.

• Do not pressure anyone to meet in person, reveal personal contact information, move to another service, send money, or provide access to a device or account.
• Do not use Buildsby to groom, exploit, sexually solicit, or endanger a minor. Sexual content involving minors, including manipulated or AI-generated content, is never allowed.
• Do not promote or encourage suicide, self-harm, eating-disorder behaviour, or other serious self-injury. Supportive discussion and recovery-oriented resources are allowed.
• Do not organize hazing, coercive initiation, dangerous challenges, or activities that create an unreasonable risk of injury.

If you believe someone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services first. A Buildsby report is not a substitute for emergency help.

10. Illegal and harmful activity

Do not use Buildsby to plan, facilitate, fund, advertise, or celebrate illegal activity or serious harm. Prohibited activity includes:

• Fraud, phishing, identity theft, account theft, blackmail, extortion, money laundering, or deceptive investment and fundraising schemes.
• Trafficking, exploitation, sexual services, non-consensual sexual material, or material depicting sexual abuse.
• Sales or transfers of illegal drugs, weapons, stolen property, counterfeit goods, stolen data, credentials, or access to compromised systems.
• Instructions or tools whose main purpose is to injure people, compromise systems without authorization, evade safeguards, or conceal serious wrongdoing.
• Terrorist or violent extremist recruitment, praise, propaganda, fundraising, or operational support.

Educational, journalistic, research, artistic, and defensive-security discussion may be allowed when the context is clear and the content does not meaningfully enable abuse. Authorization matters. Testing a system you do not own or lack permission to test is not acceptable.

11. Security and platform integrity

Do not interfere with Buildsby, its users, or connected services. This includes:

• Attempting to gain unauthorized access to an account, database, system, repository, or non-public feature.
• Distributing malware, malicious code, credential-harvesting pages, deceptive downloads, or unsafe links.
• Evading account restrictions, rate limits, access controls, moderation systems, or security measures.
• Scraping, crawling, load testing, reverse engineering, or automating access in a way that violates the Terms of Service, harms reliability, or collects data without authorization.
• Coordinating fake traffic, denial-of-service activity, spam, or other behaviour that degrades the service.

If you discover a security vulnerability, do not exploit it, access data you do not need, or publish details that could put users at risk. Stop testing and report the issue to support@buildsby.com with enough information for us to investigate.

12. Spam and manipulation

Build genuine connections. The following behaviour is not allowed:

• Bulk or repetitive messages, comments, invitations, connection requests, or promotions that recipients did not reasonably expect.
• Misleading links, irrelevant tags, keyword stuffing, copied project posts, engagement bait, or excessive self-promotion that disrupts discovery.
• Bots or automation that create accounts, send messages, apply to projects, follow users, vote, endorse, or inflate activity without Buildsby's permission.
• Buying, selling, or exchanging accounts, endorsements, reviews, referrals, invitations, or artificial engagement.
• Manipulating ranking, recommendations, analytics, reports, or moderation through coordinated or deceptive activity.

13. Sexual graphic and disturbing content

Buildsby is a professional student collaboration platform. Pornography, explicit sexual content, sexual solicitation, fetish content, and graphic sexualized nudity are not allowed. Graphic violence, gore, and disturbing imagery are also prohibited unless limited exposure is clearly necessary for a legitimate educational, documentary, scientific, or public-interest project and appropriate warnings and safeguards are used.

Any content that sexualizes, exploits, or endangers a minor is prohibited, including fictional, manipulated, or AI-generated depictions.

14. AI generated and synthetic content

AI tools can support ideation, design, coding, research, and communication. Their use does not remove your responsibility for accuracy, permission, attribution, safety, or academic rules.

• Do not use AI to impersonate a real person, fabricate a teammate or endorsement, or create deceptive evidence of progress, users, results, or credentials.
• Do not claim AI-generated work as a human contribution when that distinction would materially mislead teammates, evaluators, recruiters, customers, or viewers.
• Clearly label synthetic audio, video, or imagery when a reasonable viewer could otherwise mistake it for an authentic record of a real person or event.
• Review AI output before posting it. Do not publish generated code, claims, citations, personal data, or media that is unsafe, false, infringing, or confidential.
• Do not use automated generation to flood Buildsby with low-quality profiles, projects, comments, applications, or messages.

15. Reports and cooperation

Use the in-product reporting option where available or email support@buildsby.com. Include the relevant profile, project, message, or link; a brief explanation; and any screenshots or context that may disappear. Do not put yourself at risk to collect evidence.

Reports should be made in good faith. Do not knowingly submit false reports, coordinate reports to silence legitimate criticism, threaten someone with a report to gain leverage, or publish another person's sensitive information in a report when it is not necessary. A mistaken report made honestly is not a violation.

We may ask for more information. We may also preserve relevant records and contact emergency services, institutions, service providers, or law enforcement when we reasonably believe it is necessary to address imminent harm, investigate serious abuse, comply with law, or protect the service, subject to our Privacy Policy and applicable law.

16. Enforcement

Buildsby may take action when content or conduct violates these guidelines, the Terms of Service, or applicable law. Depending on the circumstances, we may:

• Ask a user to edit or remove content.
• Reduce distribution, hide content, disable a feature, or limit messaging and discovery.
• Remove content, projects, links, opportunities, or accounts.
• Issue a warning or require verification, education, or another corrective step.
• Temporarily suspend or permanently disable an account.
• Restrict related accounts or prevent a person from creating new accounts.
• Notify affected users or relevant authorities where appropriate and lawful.

We consider the severity and likelihood of harm, context, intent, whether the conduct was targeted or repeated, the user's history, the credibility of available evidence, cooperation with our review, and the need to protect others. Severe violations may result in immediate removal or account restriction without a prior warning.

We may take temporary action while reviewing a report. We may also decide that reported content does not violate these guidelines. No moderation system is perfect, and these guidelines do not promise that all objectionable content will be removed or that every dispute will be resolved by Buildsby.

17. Reviews and appeals

If Buildsby removes your content or restricts your account and you believe the decision was incorrect, email support@buildsby.com from the address associated with your account. Use the subject line Community Guidelines Appeal and include:

• Your name and account email.
• The content or decision you are appealing.
• Why you believe the decision was incorrect or disproportionate.
• Any relevant context or new evidence that was not available during the first review.

Appeals must be respectful and truthful. Repeated submissions without new information, harassment of staff or reporters, and attempts to evade a restriction may result in further action. Some decisions may not be appealable where an account presents an urgent safety or legal risk.

18. Changes to these guidelines

We may update these guidelines as Buildsby develops, risks change, or our legal and operational obligations evolve. We will update the last-updated date and provide additional notice when a change materially affects how the community may use Buildsby. Continued use after an update is governed by the updated version, subject to applicable law.

19. Contact

Questions, reports, security concerns, and appeals may be sent to support@buildsby.com. For privacy requests, copyright notices, or legal matters, use the contact method identified in the applicable Buildsby policy when one is provided.